moments
by TransfiguredToad
Summary: missing moments from season 8, mainly Gendry/Arya, Tyrion/Sansa and Brienne/Jaime, maybe some Jon/Daenerys
1. running to the forge

The dagger clattered from her hand as she thought for the first time since she had understood the words the Red Woman had spoken. Her hand shook as she stared at the ground. The Night King had gone, had dissipated when she'd killed him. How could that be? He had been so huge, such a shadow over their lives. And now he was not even dust.

Arya turned around, teetering from foot to foot. The bodies of the Ironborn were scattered around them, Theon's face alone standing out to her. She could not process her feelings about that. All of the dead she had sneaked past, all gone. All the dead were gone. Only the dead that were once living.

Bran was silent. Arya didn't know if she wanted him to speak or not. She didn't know what she wanted. She had no idea what to do. She wanted to run away, to cross the seas, to go somewhere she had never been before and where she knew no one. She would be no one. She wanted to run back to Winterfell, to what remained, to find her sister and her brother and Gendry.

Arya's thoughts flashed back to the night before. She wanted to see Gendry. Suddenly she was moving, Bran forgotten. She had to get back to Winterfell. Who was still living? Was Gendry alive? The Hound? Jon?

Each thought propelled her faster and faster until Winterfell was in sight. Bodies were lying where they had fallen, some in piles of three or four on top of each other. One of Daenerys' dragons obscured the view of the door to Winterfell.

Arya found her brother crouched there with the dragon queen, an awful noise coming from her mouth. As she grew closer, she identified the cause of the sound: Ser Jorah Mormont was dead. A good fighter. They would miss him in the war to come, against Cersei.

Arya supposed she should tell Jon that she had been the one to destroy the Night King, should probably give him all the details. That could wait until the sun came up. Arya skipped down and back up the moat whose fire had finally gone out.

Lady Brienne gave Arya a nod from where she was leaning against a wall with Jaime Lannister, silently and yet so closely that Arya questioned that relationship, not for the first time. Still, Arya was glad they had both survived, even if she did wonder how much help Jaime Lannister would be when it came to killing the woman who he had reportedly loved his whole life. Brienne's usefulness, however, Arya would never question.

The Hound, she found around a corner, on his own. He did not notice her. She should have spoken to him, thanked him for saving her life, thanked him for a lot of things. She didn't. She had yet to find Gendry.

The forge had been her destination since she'd left the Godswood and she was only moments away when something crashed into her. Her dagger was out and pressing into the midriff of whatever it was-

"Arya!" Sansa cried out. Arya stumbled backwards, dropping the dagger again. Fumbling to pick it up, she began to splutter. Her sister looked better than any of them, of course, along with the dwarf who was stood beside her. "Arya," Sansa whispered again and took her back into her arms. It was over. It was all really over. "Arya, the corpses in the crypt, they came to-"

Arya stopped listening. Over Sansa's shoulder, she finally saw him, stepping out from the forge, where she'd known he would be, provided he had survived. He had probably heard Sansa shout her name. Arya pulled away from Sansa wordlessly and heard her call after her.

She couldn't bring herself to care. There wasn't conscious thought in what her feet were doing and it was pure luck that she didn't trip on any bodies. He was moving towards her and she towards him and then finally - finally she was in his arms. The numbness seeped out of her as she began to sob quiet, almost soundless, rasping sobs, her face buried into his chest.

What Sansa thought, what Lord Tyrion thought, what the Hound thought, what Jon and Daenerys thought, what Brienne and Ser Jaime thought, she didn't care. She was alive and he was alive and she felt alive and it was over. The Great War was over.


	2. dinner with the Starks

It was odd really, Sansa thought, glancing around the room. It was Jon's room but it was huge, so he had a dining table. He had invited the rest of them to come and dine with him that evening, the rest of the Starks that was. Years ago, there would have been nine of them: her parents, Robb, Theon, Jon, Arya, Bran, Rickon and herself. And, here they were, the four survivors. With another war yet to fight.

Jon lifted his glass to the four of them and they joined in, Bran only drinking water. Arya drank her wine faster than Sansa would have expected of her. "This is nice," Jon commented. Sansa wasn't sure she agreed. It was wonderful to have her family back together, of course, but Bran was hardly Bran anymore and, well, she didn't know what Arya was.

It had been a week since the Great Battle of Winterfell, when Arya had killed the Night King. She had told them that and then spent two days holed up in her quarters with the blacksmith she'd taken a liking to. Sansa had spent her time with Tyrion, sharing the stories of the time they had spent apart.

"So, Sansa," Arya started as Sansa tried to hide her smile, remembering something that Tyrion had told her earlier that day. "What's going on between you and the imp?" Her sister sipped on her wine as she said it and Sansa snarled.

Her first impulse was to defend him against the nickname that he hated. Her second was to slap her sister's smug little face. "We were married once," Sansa commented with a shrug, "and he was kind to me."

"Not what I asked," Arya commented. Sansa looked to Jon for support but found him with raised eyebrows.

Rolling her eyes to the ceiling, Sansa said, "Tyrion is my friend. He was my greatest support while I was being emotionally tortured by Joffrey and his mother and I will never forget that."

"_Tyrion_," Arya said in a silly voice. Sansa lunged.

"Okay!" Jon called to order. "Stop, the both of you."

"Well, I don't know why we're talking about my friendship with Tyrion when we could be discussing Arya's antics with her little blacksmith."

"His name," Arya said with raised eyebrows, "is Gendry Waters." Sansa scoffed. A bastard. "And if Tyrion was your greatest support, Gendry was mine when I served Tywin Lannister."

"You what?" Sansa and Jon spat immediately. Arya shrugged.

"Survived, didn't I?"

"How long have you known him?" Sansa asked, astonished. She had assumed that her sister had met the smith when they had returned to Winterfell.

"When I left King's Landing, after Father was murdered," Arya said bitterly and Sansa remembered it with a flash, "Gendry and I were going to be shipped off to the Night's Watch together. I wanted to get to you, Jon, and the man Gendry was working for sold him. He figured out I wasn't the commoner boy I was pretending to be."

"I wonder how," Jon said and Sansa sipped her wine as she observed her brother's protective qualities come out. Arya just rolled her eyes.

"I wasn't fucking him until we were back at Winterfell, don't worry." Sansa and Jon both spluttered their wine at the word "fucking" emerging from their little sister's mouth. "What? What did you and Lord Tyrion call it, Sansa? Making love?" she mocked.

"Tyrion and I never slept together," Sansa countered angrily.

"What about you, Jon? What do you call it when you're fucking the Dragon Queen?"

Jon's face hardened and Arya chuckled. "Enough, Arya." Arya poured herself another glass of wine.

"There was a reason I gathered you here," Jon said and Sansa and Arya both looked up from their wine. Before he could say anything, though, Bran spoke.

"Jon is our cousin," he said in that eerie voice of his. Sansa's lips parted. Arya's face didn't move.

"Our cousin?" Sansa said, tearing her eyes from Bran to Jon.

Jon sighed. "My mother was our aunt, Lyanna Stark, and my father was her husband and non-rapist, Rhaegar Targaryen."

"You're fucking your aunt," were the first words to emerge from Arya's mouth after a few moments of silence, in which Sansa could not decide what to do with herself, what to think.

At Arya's comment, however, a laugh bubbled out of Sansa's throat. If you didn't laugh, you'd cry. "Arya," she scolded slightly even as she laughed. When their laughs faded, though, Jon was not laughing and Sansa turned serious.

"This makes you the heir, Jon."

Jon nodded. "Dany and I -"

"What does she have to with anything?" Sansa spat. Jon gave her a withering look and Sansa held his stare.

"Dany is the queen. She's been training to be queen her whole life. She's been fighting to be queen her whole life. I don't even want to be king."

"But you are," Arya commented. Jon shrugged with a sigh.

"Dany and I are trying to decide what to do. I just thought you should know. You can't tell anybody, not your imp or your blacksmith," he said, turning to each of them in turn. Sansa glared at her brother's use of Tyrion's nickname. Arya just rolled her eyes. Sansa guessed that her sister's little blacksmith would know by the end of the night.


	3. it's the middle of the day

Sansa hated the situation she was in. They were going to leave to march on King's Landing the next day. They knew that Cersei was planning something but they weren't sure what and the longer they were leaving it the more time the bitch had to plan. Sansa was staying in the North, one of Queen Daenerys and King Jon's seven kingdoms.

Oh yes, her brother had married the dragon queen. It was the easiest solution, they both simpered, staring longingly at each other. Jon made Sansa warden of the north. It was the best thing that came out of the incestuous marriage.

But now Sansa had to stay in the north, with Tyrion who Daenerys was leaving behind for whatever reason. Probably because she didn't trust Sansa, even if they were family, by law, now.

It wasn't necessarily that she minded Tyrion. In fact, quite the contrary. She was sure that they would have had quite a happy marriage if things had gone differently. They got on very well, better than Sansa had got on with any of her other suitors. He listened to her talk about her torture, from both Joffrey and Ramsey. She listened to him talk about Shae and his father and what a mess that had all turned out to be. Sansa wasn't as shocked as Tyrion expected her to be that Shae, her handmaiden, was Tyrion's lover.

So, no, she got on with Tyrion very well. Perhaps too well. And, so, here she was. At her sister's door. Ready to ask advice.

When Sansa was younger and she didn't understand Arya, she thought that, one day, in some glorious future, she would be queen and happily married with children and Arya would come to her for advice and Sansa would laugh at her and patronise her.

How her plan for the future had changed. Sansa wasn't sure she ever wanted to get married again. But that didn't mean she had to be closed off from love.

Tyrion was older than her. He was a Lannister. He served Daenerys, although Sansa supposed they all did now.

Sansa swung open her sister's door. She needed help.

Rather than an empty room, which she had half expected, Sansa found Arya astride her little blacksmith, both as naked as the day they were born. "Arya!" Sansa screeched and Arya practically growled at her, clambering off her lover and pulling a blanket over them.

"What the hell are you doing?" Arya demanded.

"What am I doing?" Sansa replied. "It's the middle of the day! This isn't a brothel!"

Arya did not take kindly to that statement. Due to the look on her face and the glance to her sword behind her, Sansa fled from the room, feeling utterly mortified, slightly jealous and very angry.

The scars on Arya's side were not from any light training.

**XXX**

Apologising to Arya was not the hardest part of the conversation, although difficult. Her sister took the apology while the two of them drank wine together that evening. They spoke for a while about generalities, the upcoming war, Cersei, Arya's relationship with Gendry, Jon and Daenerys.

"What happened?" Sansa finally had the courage to ask. Arya looked up from her wine and gave her sister a funny look.

"Do I need to tell Tyrion to have a conversation about sex with you?" Arya asked. Sansa bristled but decided being irritated at her sister and telling her about what had happened with Ramsay was not the best option. Rather, Sansa rolled her eyes.

"I know what sex is. What happened to your side?"

Arya looked shocked at first and Sansa was quite pleased to have shocked her unshockable sister.

"My journey here wasn't an easy one," Arya replied tightly. Sansa wanted to push her, wanted to be able to help her sister to cope. "I've had this conversation once already recently. I don't want to have it again, Sansa."

"With Gendry?" Sansa questioned, purposefully using her sister's lover's name. Sansa didn't expect her sister to smile but she did.

"Yes."

They were silent for a few moments. Sansa felt a bit envious that her sister, who she had not seen for so long and who she had thought she was becoming closer to since returning to Winterfell, was going to someone else to talk about her troubles. Although perhaps Arya had no troubles. Who would know? She was always so straight-faced.

"Why did you come to my rooms, Sansa?" Arya asked, turning to her. Sansa wondered whether she should even tell Arya. Was it a ridiculous question to even ask?

Sansa stared at her skirts. "I've been considering my feelings for Lord Tyrion."

Arya arched her eyebrow. "Feelings?"

Sansa gave Arya what she hoped was a withering look. She did not want to be mocked. "I just- I was thinking about remarrying him."

"Remarrying him?" Arya repeated and then shrugged. "You always wanted to be married."

"It's not that he's- he is kind to me."

"You have low standards," Arya said with a grin. "He can't be the only man who is kind to you."

Sansa looked down. "Arya, Ramsay Bolton was not kind to me." Arya was silent. She knew that she was thinking about Theon and the way they knew that Ramsay had treated him. "We were married in the godswood, just like I had always dreamed, and I thought he might have been okay and then he was raping me."

Sansa said all of this without crying. She had cried when she told Tyrion. Arya's face was angry. It was nothing next to Tyrion's, but Arya was always good at hiding her emotions. "He is dead now but I can still feel his touch on me. I can still hear his words, his threats. When I wake up after dreaming of him, I can feel him inside me."

Arya was shaking. Sansa wondered what she wanted to do. Ramsay was dead, the Boltons were all dead. There was nothing Arya could do. "Joffrey, too, when I was his fiancée, he threatened me, was awful to me. He said he was going to rape me, on my wedding night. It's only now that I can even imagine it. At the time, it repulsed me, of course it did, but I can only imagine it now. I dream of it."

"But he never-"

"No. I didn't sleep that night. I listened to my new drunk husband snore and slept with a knife from the wedding banquet in my hand. I didn't even know what to do with it but I needed something.

"I never wanted to get married again. When Theon and I ran away and Brienne saved my life, I decided I would be just like her, but not a fighter. I would be strong enough on my own, I decided. And then I saved the Battle of the Bastards and I thought I could do it. And then I saw Brienne's face when she thought we were going to kill Jaime Lannister and I saw his face when she stood up to save him, when she told us he was an honourable man and I realised that even Brienne didn't want to do life alone. She could but why should she? And then I was in the crypts with Tyrion-"

"Marry him," Arya interrupted. "You're not built for life on your own. You never wanted life on your own. Tyrion is a good man and he will look after you."

"I- it would be a good match. It would- Stark and Lannister-"

"Sansa," Arya said, shooting her a smile, "you're allowed to say you love him."

Sansa's lips parted and she didn't say what her sister wanted her to say. She wasn't even sure she felt it. She reached across and gripped Arya's hand.


	4. don't leave me

The second the dead fell, Sansa was moving. A few seconds later, ignoring the calls of Varys and Missandei to go to find their queen, Tyrion was hurrying after his ex-wife. "Sansa!" he called after her. She ignored him. "Sansa, slow down."

Stopping suddenly, Sansa turned towards him and Tyrion genuinely thought she might strike him. "I have to find out! Tyrion, I have to know," Sansa said. The tears were evident in her voice. Tyrion reached out and took her hand.

"Let's go and find out, Sansa."

Hand in hand, Tyrion was aware he probably looked like a young child being led by his mother. He did not care. Much. Sansa needed him. He had not been here to protect her from her second marriage, whatever had happened there, but he would be here for her now.

They passed through the crypts and into the fresh air, as fresh as air stinking of death and burning flesh could be. Tyrion saw Jaime almost instantaneously. He was collapsed, leaning against the walls of Winterfell, head tipped back and knees against his stomach. His good hand was wrapped around Ser Brienne's, who was sitting next to him, also looking utterly worn out. Neither of them saw Tyrion, so he allowed Sansa to continue to lead him to wherever they were going.

She was looking around frantically, head swinging from one side to the other. He saw the relief on her face every time she saw someone she knew. Tyrion tried to keep his eyes on Sansa's hand in his. It was easier than looking at the dead bodies. The only person he really cared about was Jaime and he was alive.

Sansa squeezed his hand and Tyrion's stomach jumped, glancing up. Together, they smiled at Podrick, who was walking rather aimlessly through the mounds of dead bodies. Maybe Tyrion cared about two people. But they were both alive.

Daenerys they found sobbing with her dragon and Ser Jorah's dead body, Jon's arms wrapped around her. Tyrion was glad Jon was looking after her again. Things had seemed to frost over the past few days. Sansa's relief at seeing her half-brother was palpable. He squeezed her hand and she smiled at him.

Tyrion knew that Sansa was looking for Arya desperately. He knew that she was leading him to the Godswood, where the bodies, dead or alive, of Theon Greyjoy and her younger brother would be. Perhaps Arya was there too.

For the first time, Tyrion wondered who had killed the night king. Perhaps it was Jon, but he would have found Daenerys very quickly afterwards. It could have been anyone really, if they had happened to hit him with dragonglass. Perhaps it was Theon Greyjoy, protecting Bran.

They edged into the Godswood. Tyrion felt Sansa slow down slightly, her hand shaking. He grasped it more firmly. "Whatever we find, Sansa, you will be okay," he assured her, looking into her eyes. She nodded shakily. Tyrion was reminded of the girl he had married; she had come so far since then.

They saw Bran first and Sansa breathed out a sigh. Arya was leaning by a tree next to him, a dragonglass dagger in her hand. Perhaps it was her. Tyrion nearly chuckled. Of course, little Arya Stark would be the one to kill the night king. "Sansa," Bran said. His voice was rather ominous, full of warning. Tyrion glanced at Sansa then, whose eyes were fixed on a body on the ground.

The sound that came out of her was unearthly. She broke away from Tyrion and collapsed by it, sobs wracking her body. Tyrion sighed. Theon Greyjoy was dead. "He died well," Bran commented from his seat by the tree. Tyrion glanced at him. He knew that it was not the right thing to say to an angry, grieving Sansa.

"There are no good deaths," Sansa spat, "only death."

Arya was watching Sansa and for a moment Tyrion thought she would come to comfort her sister, but she didn't. He supposed that left it to him. As if this was his speciality. "Sansa," he murmured. Her sobs were heart-wrenching. They were surely audible in King's Landing. Tyrion hoped they were. He hoped that Cersei could hear them and hear what she had done. Perhaps if the selfish bitch had come to give them aid, more people could have been spared to protect Bran. Perhaps Theon Greyjoy wouldn't have had to die.

Tyrion rested his hand on Sansa's shoulder. She grasped it with both hands and continued to sob. "He's dead, Tyrion," she cried. Tyrion glanced over at Arya, who was looking at the body rather impassively. Tyrion supposed it was an oddity, to have someone who you had once loved but who had betrayed your family die. What were you supposed to think? Arya probably had enough on her mind anyway, what with having killed the night king. Or so Tyrion thought. He wasn't entirely sure.

Tyrion sighed and moved to kneel. He wrapped his arms around Sansa and she sobbed into his shoulder. The whole situation must have looked comical. The Lannister demon monkey being sobbed into by a Stark lady, of such beauty she could have been an angel.

Tyrion did not know how long they sat there for, Sansa's shoulders shaking the earth. Bran and Arya were both silent and Tyrion wondered why Arya did not go back to Winterfell, to tell everyone what had happened, how it had happened.

Eventually, Jon and Daenerys arrived. Tyrion heard them approach, heard Jon's happy cry at seeing all three of his siblings alive. Glancing over Sansa's shoulder, he watched Jon hug his brother and youngest sister. He heard Bran tell Jon that Arya had killed the night king.

Sansa's sobs had slowed by this point, although her head was still buried in Tyrion's shoulder. Jon approached and lay his hand on the shoulder that Tyrion was not occupying. "I'm sorry about Theon, Sansa."

Sansa's tears were slower at the mention of him this time. They were streams rather than waves, silent rather than earth-shaking. Tyrion pulled away, to allow the family their time together. "No," Sansa protested. "Don't leave me." Tyrion inhaled. Sansa clung to his shirt. He could not leave her. "Don't ever leave me," Sansa begged. Seven help him, he never would if he could help it.

Tyrion wondered what sort of look he was getting from Daenerys at that point. He found he didn't care. His loyalties were not as split as Sansa had suggested in the crypts.

"Never," he promised, shifting so that he was sat on his arse instead of his knees. "I'm always here, Sansa."

"He was the first man to make me feel safe after you," she confessed to him, her tears making her voice waiver slightly. "He saved me. He helped me escape Ramsay."

She was rambling now and Tyrion let her. She needed to get this out. He wondered if she had told anyone the full story of her marriage to Ramsay.

"Lord Baelish, he sold me to Ramsay and then Ramsay made Theon-"

Her sobs began anew. "It's alright, Sansa," Tyrion tried to comfort, "it's going to be okay."

"He made Theon watch while he raped me. Every night," Sansa rasped, "every night, he would force Theon to watch as he did whatever he liked to me. He beat me and cut me and raped me and Theon couldn't do anything except watch-"

Tyrion closed his eyes against the tears that had welled up there. "He's gone now," Tyrion said quietly. "Ramsay can never hurt you again. I promise you." Tyrion hoped Daenerys and Jon weren't listening.

"I wish you had consummated our marriage," Sansa sobbed and Tyrion nearly choked on his own saliva. "I would never have had to marry Ramsay."

Tyrion felt his heart break. She would have hated him if he had. But she would've been safer.

"It just hurts so much, Tyrion." Holding her in his arms, Tyrion wished Varys had taken him to find her instead of Daenerys all those years ago. She would have been safer with him than with Lord Baelish.

"I'm so sorry, Sansa, so sorry," he said, his tone almost pleading. He wished he could erase all of her pain, all of the beatings, all of the rape. He wished he could give her a blank canvas for her to start again.

"Don't leave me," she sobbed again. Tyrion closed his eyes.

"Never, never again," he swore. He would never leave her again.


End file.
